


Just To Make Happy Someone Like You

by ladyknightley



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Christmas, F/M, romione
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-05 17:14:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5383784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyknightley/pseuds/ladyknightley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ron knows how to make Hermione feel festive. And after all they've been through, they probably deserve it. FLUFF.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just To Make Happy Someone Like You

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: as usual, not mine, and the title comes from 'Christmas Day' (the She & Him version is one of my favourite ever Christmas songs :) )

Ron Weasley liked being an Auror very, very much. There were several perks to the job: the fact that he got to work with Harry, its active and fast-paced nature, the fact that he felt he was doing something that contributed to society in a positive way. The generous salary was another bonus, he couldn’t deny that. But the number one reason Ron Weasley liked being an Auror was that there was no homework.

The documentation for the cases they worked on was far too sensitive to be taken outside of approved locations within the Ministry, and so although there were far too many long and boring hours writing up endless reports, this didn’t have to be done in his free time. He didn’t mind working hard, but he did hate the idea of his leisure time being filled with work, too.

There were trade-offs, of course: nightshifts; endless hours of surveillance where he had to remain totally still and quiet for hours on end; a big case coming in and resulting in all leave being cancelled, and extended hours in the office with barely any time to eat or sleep. But, watching Hermione make her way through caseload after caseload, doing another six, seven or even eight hours of work at home after a full day in the chambers made him very, very grateful for the lack of something similar.

That night, he wasn’t watching Hermione work. This was because she was entirely hidden behind huge piles of books, and only the fact that he could see her feet (resting on Crookshanks) under the desk and hear the occasional sigh of exasperation let him know she was still there. It was, he reflected, a particular shame, because the books blocked her view of the Christmas tree he’d purchased on the way home from work, which was currently standing in the corner of the room with two boxes next to it, waiting to be decorated.

It may still have been early December—too early, really, to put up the tree—but he was determined it was going to be done tonight. Not really out of any extreme fit of festive spirit, but because it would stop Hermione from killing herself with work for...oh, maybe half an hour.

But—apart from the times she had spent sleeping, or maybe showering—that would be the longest time she had stopped working in the past three weeks. It was time she had a break. He cleared his throat.

“Hermione, love?”

“Hmm?” She looked up, lifting several books up to actually meet his gaze.

“Want to decorate the tree?”

“The tree?” she frowned in confusion. “Oh, right. You said you’d got one on the way home... Can’t we do it at the weekend? I’m a bit busy right now.”

“I fancied doing it tonight,” he said cheerily. “We could put on the Christmas music, have a mince pie and some mulled wine, get into the spirit...” She frowned again. “Okay, not the mulled wine. It’s disgusting. But you get the idea.”

“I can’t, I’m afraid,” she said, already setting the books down on the table. “I’m just too busy. But you go ahead—I’m sure it’ll look great once you’re done!”

His heart sank. “I can’t do it alone, that’s not getting into the festive spirit!” he said, keeping his tone bright and jolly. “We’ve got to do it together, that’s what we did last year, and the year before. Keep the tradition going, eh? So, come on. Put your stuff down and let’s make the place look all Christmassy!”

“Ron,” Hermione said firmly. “I  _can’t_. You know that. I said I would take two weeks off over Christmas, and I will. I’m not going to do a single thing for work after the twentieth, until we go back to work on the third. Two whole weeks off! We can do whatever you’d like then. But in order to do that, I said I’d have to work harder before, to get everything done before we have a break.”

“You said you’d have to work harder, yes, but you didn’t say you’d be killing yourself with work!” Ron exclaimed. “When was the last time you stopped working, except to go to bed? And you didn’t do that until one last night—and you were up again at six!”

“Well, unfortunately, that can’t change, at least before the holiday,” Hermione snapped. “Ideally, I’d love to be lounging around doing nothing all evening, with no greater concern than whether to use silver or gold tinsel on the tree. But this case comes before the Wizengamot on the fifteenth, and like it or not there are a set number of hours before that deadline. It’ll serve everyone much better if I actually use them productively, rather than by messing around with babuls.”

Ron opened his mouth to argue with her, then snapped it shut, flopping down on the sofa on the other side of the room (which, given the size of their flat, was not quite as far away as he’d have liked). “You know what? That’s fine,” he replied. “By all means continue. I’ll see you on the twentieth.”

“For Merlin’s sake, Ron,” Hermione said, rolling her eyes. “Yes, I’d love to be decorating the tree and doing all that fun Christmas stuff, but  _I have to work_. You know I’ve got an important deadline, and—ugh, I’m not going to waste time arguing with you. I’ve got more important things to do.”

She settled back down at the desk, and pretty soon all he could hear was the scratching of her quill and occasional rustle of parchment. Her feet were still resting on Crookshanks, who was purring contentedly and glaring at Ron (he was sure it was personal). But the cat gave him an idea...

Sometimes, he resented having grown up with so many siblings—he was only human, after all. But sometimes, he was very grateful for all it had taught him. Such as: how to be really, really,  _really_  annoying. Watched only by Crookshanks, he used silent magic to open the box of decorations, and attach several baubles to the end of Hermione’s desk. They each dangled at different heights, and Crookshanks’s eyes glowed as he watched them. Ron waved his wand, and they started to jiggle up and down. Crookshanks, unable to resist the temptation, started biffing them with his paws, which made them move about even more.

Ron tried hard to stifle his giggles; Hermione hadn’t yet noticed what he was up to, but it was only a matter of time before—

It all happened very quickly: Crookshanks hit a bauble with such force that it detached itself and shot across the room; he dived after it and in doing so, crashed into the tree Ron had bought in, which toppled over. Alarmed, Crookshanks leapt out of the way with a yowl, attaching himself to Ron’s front with his claws before Ron had even managed to stop laughing at the tree crashed onto Hermione, whose startled shriek mingled with the cat’s yowl and Ron’s bellow of pain as the cat sunk his claws into his chest.

Then, there was a moment of perfect silence, the kind that comes before an explosion. Hermione emerged from the foliage, spitting pine needles everywhere. Her eyes narrowed as she took in Ron’s guilty expression, the cat, and then the baubles attached to the desk that he had been playing with. Her gaze went to the one that had shot across the room, then the tree that was now covering the parts of her notes that the spilled ink from the bottle it had knocked over hadn’t already obscured. Ron could see her putting two and two together—not that you needed to be the brightest witch of the age to do so—turning redder and redder in the face. She opened her mouth.

And burst out laughing.

He was so shocked he actually looked around for a moment, searching for someone else who might be lurking behind him, pulling faces to amuse her or something else equally ridiculous, but he soon realised that she was laughing at...him? Crookshanks? Herself?! “Er...Hermione?” he asked, beginning to grin despite himself as her laughter neared hysterics. “Are you okay?”

It was several moments before she could compose herself enough to spit out, “The...tree...fell...on me!”

“It did,” Ron agreed slowly. “Are you...are you mad?”

Hermione positively howled with laughter. “No! This is...the best laugh I’ve had in weeks!”

Ron himself didn’t think it was that funny, but if it stopped her from killing him, he wasn’t going to complain. “Good to know I’ve still got the old ‘comic relief’ thing going on, then,” he said. After a while, she calmed down until she was just giving the occasionally giggle. “D’you need help clearing your notes up?” he asked. They were covered in pine needles and strewn across the desk, but mercifully the bottle of ink she’d been using hadn’t gone everywhere. Yet. It would probably be wise to get that out of Crookshanks’s way pretty sharpish.

“No, no, it’s fine,” Hermione said, sitting down at her desk and using her wand to upright the tree and sort out her piles of parchment and books in about three seconds. “It cleared up pretty easily.”

“No major damage done,” Ron said, still eyeing her warily. She was flicking through the pages of one of the books, a slight frown on her face, and he wondered if maybe he’d spoken too soon.

“Oh, sod it!” she said suddenly, slamming the book shut. Ron blinked. “I think it’s a sign,” she elaborated. “A tree literally fell on me. The Christmas Gods are probably trying to tell me something. Let’s take a break and do something festive!”

“Oh, so you’ll listen to divine intervention before you listen to me, is that how it is?” Ron said. “Well, at least I know what to do next time you won’t listen to me!”

“Decapitate me with some other kind of greenery?”

“I was thinking more call on any kind of deity that’ll listen, but I suppose there is that, too,” he replied. “Seriously though,” he added, sobering for a moment, “are you sure you want to do this tonight? If you’re busy, it will wait. Your work is very important.”

“It is. But you were right about taking a break,” Hermione admitted. “And it’s Christmas. Well, kind of. But who  _doesn’t_  want to stop and decorate a tree?”

“Well we  _do_  have to do it before Harry and Ginny come round on the weekend, or she’ll do it for us,” Ron said. “And we’ll end up with a stunned gnome in a tutu and a tinsel explosion.”

“And I do much prefer a bauble explosion,” agreed Hermione, opening the other box of decorations. “Oh,  _Merlin_ ,” she groaned, momentarily distracted by what she discovered. “I’d completely forgotten your Auntie Muriel insisted on giving us the Nightmare Fairy.” She held it up, and he shuddered.

“The eyes,” he said in a spooky voice, “they  _follow_  you...”

“We’ll leave that her in the box,” Hermione said, “oh but look—d’you remember going to the Christmas shop at Harrods last year to get these?” she added, holding up a red and a gold bauble.

“How could I forget the Gryffindor decorations?!” Ron grinned. “Go on, stick ’em on the tree. Let’s get going.” He loved this: loved watching her relax and forget about work, the books banished from sight for once. He loved that they were now old enough to have Christmas traditions, loved watching her cosy up their little flat by drawing the curtains and putting on records, teasing him with a Celestina Warbeck collection. He loved the ridiculous slippers she was wearing, loved the way she knew  _exactly_  how to make his hot chocolate, loved the way her serious, hefty books stood next to his  _Martin Miggs_  comics on the bookshelf she threw tinsel over.

It didn’t take them long to decorate the tree; it was small, and their flat was tiny enough that there wasn’t really much else they could decorate and still have room to sit down. But it seemed to take a long time, and not in the way that Friday afternoon Potions class had seemed to go on forever. He felt like there was a part of him that would always be in this room with Hermione, decorating a slightly rubbish Christmas tree and making her laugh, because they were twenty and in their own home and together and alive. It felt like this was payback for the years of stress and fear and worry, but a  _good_  kind of payback. They both, he realised, deserved it.

And then it was done, and they flopped down together on the sofa to admire their handiwork. “There has never been a better decorated Christmas tree in the whole history of the world!” he declared, and Hermione nodded her agreement, because it was true. It was the best, because it was  _theirs_.

They sat together, wrapped into each other and talked about nothing and everything; they turned off all the lights save those on the tree and the room glowed and it was perfect. Even Crookshanks was peaceful now, sleeping next to them on the floor. And then it was late, and they had work in the morning, so they yawned and stretched and got up again, conscientiously switching the lights off on the tree before heading to bed. It was just a normal day, after all. Nothing special, but still extraordinary. 

Hermione gave Ron the bathroom first, putting on her pyjamas in their bedroom then heading back into the main room to pack the books she’d need for tomorrow. Ron stuck his head of out the bathroom. “I hope you’re not doing any more work,” he said, waving his toothbrush threateningly at her. She laughed, denying it, saying she was only packing up. “Good,” he said sternly. “And keep it that way—or I’ll throw another tree at you!”

In the morning, Hermione thought, she would probably regret her lack of work.

Then she looked at the tree, and then across the way at Ron, now retreating into the bedroom with Crookshanks winding his way around his ankles, always left exposed no matter what pyjamas he was wearing. “Come on, then,” he said, clambering into bed and catching her staring.

And she realised she wouldn’t regret it at all, not one single bit.  


End file.
